Jelly Cooper: Alien

I stand, make that sway, in assembly. I don’t think that I’ve ever been this tired in my entire life. Last night’s dream seemed particularly threatening and real and I spent most of the night hyperventilating. I am almost sobbing with gratitude that Humphrey has managed to squeeze forward a couple of rows to stand beside me.

He hasn’t said a word. One look at my face has told him everything he needs to know about last night’s sleep, or lack of it. He grips my hand and gives it a squeeze and, as tired as I am and as emotionally unstable, I can’t help but smile.

At least the flames have gone. I’m not sure I can deal with Bright Eyes on top of everything else.

“Can I have your attention please?”

Mr. Pickle, the headmaster of our adorable school, stands and addresses the assembly. As usual, my eyes go straight to the moustache. Mr Pickle has a big bushy moustache that’s mostly brown but has some sticky-out curly white hairs and when he talks it puffs in and out with every word. It’s like watching performance art, watching Mr. Pickle’s moustache.

Mum doesn’t like moustaches. She won’t let Dad grow one and avoids Mr. Pickle when she comes to parent’s evening. She says that hair on the face hides secrets beneath and you just can’t trust a man with a moustache. But mum also says that hairdryers can give you a brain tumour so I take the moustache thing with a pinch of salt.

“Before we get started this morning, I have an introduction to make.” Pickle gestures to a man sat behind him on the small podium. “This is Mr. Fletcher, who will be teaching Mathematics until the end of the year while Mrs. Jeffries is recovering. I am sure that you will extend a warm Seabrook welcome to Mr. Fletcher.”

Mr. Pickle is such a suck. My eyes flicker to the new Maths teacher and my stomach clenches.

Something is very, very wrong with Mr. Fletcher.

My pulse quickens and the tips of my fingers start to pulse.

Mr. Pickle discusses the program for the end of term event, but I hear none of it. My eyes are locked onto Fletcher and, for one horrific moment, I fear that I’m going to be sick, right in the middle of assembly.

I feel Humphrey’s elbow in my side.

“Jel,” he whispers. “You OK? You look like you’re going to spew.”

He’s right. Sour jets of spit squirt against my back teeth and I clamp my jaw shut. I will not be sick in assembly. I’d rather die.

Humphrey holds my arm in a tight grip. “Just hold on. Breathe deep or something.”

“If you tell me to keep a stiff upper lip, Humph, I will kill you.”

He smiles but looks worried, which doesn’t help. Thankfully, assembly ends without me losing my breakfast and my dignity. I nod at Humphrey, once, and rush towards the exit.

“Out of my way, gummy bear.”

The world can be a perverse place, I swear.

Rhiannon shoves past my shoulder. Her long silky hair is pulled back in a sleek ponytail that falls down her back like a magnificent golden tail. I can feel my split ends recoil. I wonder what she would do if I yanked on it.

She stops in front of me and spins around, her hair slicing through the air.

“Rhiannon,” I clamp my jaw shut and mumble through my teeth. “Spot on timing, as always.”

Trisha and Melissa, hearing my voice, flock to the side of their leader like little yappy lap dogs. Thinking of them as dogs makes me feel a little better. I look at them, all lined up in a row with identical tops, identical shoes and identical (bad) personalities.

Identical patheticness.

Rhiannon steps forward, doing her best to look menacing. She’s not forgiven me for the whole bimbo thing then. But on the plus side, facing her is like facing an old friend, in a way, and does distract me from chucking up my breakfast on her stupid expensive shoes.

“We were wondering if you wouldn’t mind disappearing from the face of the earth,” she hisses in my face. “That would do nicely, wouldn’t it girls?” She glances at the lap dogs and, finding them nodding as expected, turns back to me. “To never set eyes on your stupid ugly face again would be nothing short of heavenly.”

Ever the melodramatic. Melissa twitters and once again I am reminded of hyenas. They travel in packs, don’t they?

“Oh shut up Melissa,” I snap, turning to Rhiannon. “That it? Right then …”

I’m not in the mood for this. Rhiannon, however, must be having a slow day.

“You just don’t get it, do you freak show?” Her face is inches from mine, firmly within spit-spray zone. Yuck. “You don’t belong here, you or your two misfit friends. The sooner you’re gone, the better.”

That’s it. I’ve had it.

“Get out of my face, you stupid cow, before I punch you in that malicious mouth of yours and send your dentist bill through the fucking roof.”

Rhiannon blinks, her face slack with astonishment. She steps back, but catches sight of her outraged entourage waiting for a reaction. She changes tack and moves towards me.

“Is there a problem?”

Mr. Fletcher emerges from the shadowy doorway of the hall. Rhiannon, as predictable as ever and not wanting to get on the wrong side of a new teacher, goes into overdrive, smiling and fluttering her mascara-laden eyelashes. It’s enough to bring on another bout of nausea.

“No Sir. There’s no problem, just a difference of opinion.” More eyelash fluttering. “Welcome to Seabrook, Sir.”

Good Grief!

Mr. Fletcher smiles. “On your way to class or you’ll be late.”

With one last searing look in my direction, Rhiannon saunters away with a toss of her expensively-maintained head, Melissa and Trisha hot on her heels.

Mr. Fletcher turns to me and the spit in my mouth dries away. He looks closely at my face.

“You OK?”

I nod, once.

“Hmm. They looked like they were giving you a hard time.”

I find a voice. When it comes out, it sounds nothing like my own.

“It’s nothing I can’t handle.”

Did I just say that? Jebus.

He smiles, blue eyes twinkling from behind his specs. “Good for you. If it gets too much, you know where you can find me.” He looks around like a lost first year. “Well, I assume you know where to find me. If you do, maybe you can clue me in. I have no idea where I’m supposed to be.”

I laugh. I can’t help it.

Mr. Fletcher pats my shoulder, winks, turns on his heel and strides off towards the staff room.

I stare after him like an idiot.

In all my time at this hellhole of a school, not one of the teachers has ever made a move to stop Rhiannon. New kid on the block is here ten minutes and he’s not only got things figured out, but has apparently decided he’s on my side.

Mind blowing!

Twenty minutes later, hating the world for how it can turn on a pin head, I am in my own personal hell. It’s called PE.

Well, track to be specific.

400 meters to be absolutely, hellishly, precise.

Let me set a few things straight. I have what you might call a healthy aversion to school. I don’t excel at any of the subjects, except for maybe English and Art, but I am not the village idiot. The thing is; I flounder badly on the sports field. I am talking serious humiliation and usually in front of a large crowd.

So here I am, at the edge of the athletics track, shivering more from nerves than cold, with a face like a kid being forced to watch the news when there’s a perfectly good cartoon on the other channel.

I am so not looking forward to this. I may as well have a big neon sign above my head flashing ‘Jelly’s crap’.

“Come on Cooper,” Miss Davies bellows (have you noticed how games teachers are incapable of talking quietly? I’m sure it’s a bet they have with each other: who can shatter an eardrum at ten paces?). “Get yourself in gear girl.”

Miss Davies’ skin has the unfortunate mottled look of raw meat. The woman just doesn’t tan. In her too-tight shorts and shirt, she looks like a link of uncooked sausages. It’s distracting.

I roll my eyes, put on my best snooty face and hunker down into the starting position.

I hate this; waiting for the starter’s pistol, trying to make a quick getaway then watching with frustration as the rest of the field steadily pulls away no matter how hard I run. Like I said, I’m not the world’s greatest student, but I’m a long way from being the worst. Coming last all the time is killing my pride and that won’t do. Something’s got to be done.

This time, I say to myself with gusto, like every time before, things will be different.

“On your marks.”

Miss Davies’ voice booms inside my head. I try to focus.

“Get set.”

Poised at the starting line, my heart going crazy, I have no idea why getting it right this time is so important, but it is. It must be my technique, I think to myself, and jump as the pistol goes off.

“GO.”

Damn it.

The other runners shoot from the blocks. I make my own start, too late as usual. I will myself towards the finish line, to run faster. It doesn’t happen.

The other girls pull away. Trishia is out in front, as usual. She has great technique; another reason to hate her. Why do the nasty girls always do so well? I focus on Trishia. Nasty, nasty Trishia. Look at her arms pumping up and down, left arm up, right leg down, right arm up, left leg down, pumping like pistons in an engine. She’s a machine; a matter of parts, all working in beautiful sequence.

Click.

Blood rushes to my legs. I feel every part of me connect. I start to run faster.

My legs reach out in front of my body and my arms move up and down in a rhythm that matches. I glimpse the pointed toes of my trainers flicking out, one, two, one, two, onetwoonetwoonetwo.

My breathing changes. I take in breath through the nose and let it out of my mouth. I’ve never done this before. I don’t know why I’m doing it now.

I seem to be passing Charlotte Handslow.

She’s slow anyway; slower than me, sometimes. She’s a sprat and I’m after the big fish.

My legs move faster. My arms pump harder.

I pass Delyth and Marie and Sarah. They glance at me as I fly by.

The rhythm of my legs finds its way into my head and I absorb the deep booming bass of it. My speed picks up and I focus on the bass. I focus and I run.

Out of breath and half out of my mind, I cross the line and turn.

Trishia is two meters away. Still running.

I bend and take in breath after breath. Not because I need to, because weirdly I don’t, but because I know something really wrong has just happened and I don’t want anyone to know.

Plonking down on the grass at the side of the track, I try not to look at the other girls. They, however, all stare at me like I’m a freak. More than usual.

I rub at the scuffmarks on my worn trainers and do my best not to show how much I’m starting to agree with them.

Miss Davies bounds over and stands over me, blocking out the sun.

“I knew it!” she shouts, triumphantly. “I knew you had speed in you girl. Just a matter of technique, just like I said. Marvellous. Come and meet the rest of the team tomorrow lunch time and then we’ll see about getting you a trial.”

“Sorry?”

Miss Davies waves his hands in the air. “Seabrook High Athletic Team, Cooper.”

She checks her watch and turns to the other girls. “Showers girls. Come on, chop chop.”

As my classmates trudge towards the shower block, I see Trishia with a couple of other mean girls. They have their heads together. Just before they go through the door, she turns and glares at me and I know that trouble’s heading my way.

“Here, tomorrow, twelve thirty, Cooper,” Miss Davies bellows, jogging on the spot. She nods her head in my direction and takes off around the track for her usual post-lesson run.

What just happened?

In the changing rooms, I find my clothes in the bottom of a shower cubicle, soaking wet and covered in muddy footprints.

No one looks at me as I rinse them underneath the spray and wring them out, though I hear the odd snigger and whisper. I stand drying them underneath the hand dryer until the jackals file out. Trishia smiles wickedly as she passes. She pauses at the door, takes her phone out of her pocket and snaps a photo.

“Bad luck, jelly baby. Try not to cry now.”

The door swings shut, leaving a cloud of sickly perfume.

My eyes prick, but I grind my teeth until my jaw aches and refuse to let a single tear fall.

I spend the rest of the day miserable, damp and wrinkled, ignoring everyone around me.

One day, I am sure that this thing between me and the coven of three is going to get out of hand.

It’s a sobering thought.